White Knight Errant

by Andrew Joshua Talon

Here, Jaune Arc gave up a lot more to become a Hunter. A lot of time, a lot of trust, and a lot of blood. What happens when his past catches up with him? The next update will be posted on October 11th!

27. Bromance 2

White Knight Errant

A RWBY fanfic by Andrew Joshua Talon

DISCLAIMER: This is a fan based work of prose. RWBY is the property of Rooster Teeth and WB Animation. Please support the official release.

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Most of this chapter written by UnknownAnon.

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It was only after he'd dressed for the day, left his dorm room and had a quick breakfast that Jaune realized he had no actual way to contact Cardin. This was a problem since there hadn't been any agreement or plan where to meet up for their man-date. He didn't even know where Team CRDL's room was, and Jaune wasn't keen on walking up and down the floors of Beacon's dormitory to find it.

Instead, Jaune made his way over to the bullhead landing pads near the edge of the school. Assuming Cardin hadn't left ahead of him for the city, he'd inevitably head there since the only way to get to Vale from Beacon was to take a quick flight down there. There was the option to cut through the Emerald Forest, but it was rare that path was taken given the forest had Grimm wandering around and a twenty minute flight was preferable to a two hour trek.

Jaune sat on a bench near the landing pads, checking his scroll for the time as he idled about. For a half hour he watched teams come and go, and there was a lot of students coming and going. That was normal for the weekend, but air traffic was even higher given all the teams from foreign academies that had transferred for the Vytal Festival. A lot of people wanted to use their weekend to fly down and explore the city. The blonde had made a little game out of trying to guess which school students passing him belonged to. Those who wore their uniforms made their affiliation obvious, but it was a little more challenging to discern nationality for those who were dressing casually.

So absorbed in trying to determine whether or not a pair of girls were from Vacuo or Mistral, Jaune completely missed Cardin's arrival and only noticed when the young man cleared his throat.

"Oh, there you are." Jaune said by way of greeting, glancing down at his scroll and noting that it was about a half hour before noon. "Wasn't sure where we were meeting so I came here."

"Yeah, well… not like either of us said anything about where we'd meet." Cardin grumbled.

"We did not." Jaune affirmed.

"I… actually came here before breakfast." Cardin admitted, crossing his arms as he let out an irritated grunt. "It took me twenty minutes before I realized we never agreed to meet at the bullhead docks. And I didn't know where your dorm room was. And I couldn't find any of your friends to ask them. And I didn't want it to somehow get around that I didn't know how to get ahold of you and tip off Velvet that we're not…"

Cardin trailed off, letting out a frustrated groan and pinching the bridge of his nose. Jaune was mildly amused that the other team leader had gone though a similar process he had, but he was careful not to let his bemusement show since Cardin was already in a sour mood and he didn't want to give him any excuse focus on him as an outlet for his frustration.

Jaune was already playing along with this charade on sufferance, and he didn't want to start his weekend getting into a fight with Cardin.

"Did you eat at all?" Jaune asked.

"I went back to the cafeteria and microwaved a breakfast burrito." Cardin replied. "Wandered around campus for a while before I came back here. How long were you waiting?"

"Just a little while. Came here after making myself a small breakfast. We might've just missed each other."

"…Maybe we did."

"…Yep." Jaune nodded.

The duo lapsed into silence as they stared at each other. Both men felt incredibly awkward as the minutes slowly passed by. Neither really knew what to say to the other. They didn't have a plan for how to spend the day and both were drawing blanks on what they could do.

"I mean, I'm only here as a favor to help him sell the lie to his girlfriend that we're best buddies. Shouldn't he be the man with the plan in this situation?" Jaune wondered to himself.

"We can't just stay here all day. I gotta be able to tell Velvet about what we did later, and I can't let it ever slip that back then I was really… dammit, but spending the whole day with Arc. Maybe we can just walk around for a few hours in Vale and then split up? I can come up with something fake and get him to agree to a story…" Cardin thought to himself.

So lost in their own thoughts, both first years couldn't help but jolt when someone called out to them.

"Hey, you two flying to Vale or are you just gonna stay here all day?"

Jaune and Cardin turn to see one of the bullhead pilots nearby shouting at them. Glancing at each other for a moment, the two boys hurriedly made their way over to the pilot and climbed inside the aircraft as the man lowered the gangplank of the ship to let them in the passenger bay. The duo wound up sitting across from one another, and the vehicle shuddered as it prepped to take off.

"Make sure to fasten your seatbelts, kids." The pilot's voice echoed from the intercom on the roof of the seating area. "We got fine weather this morning but landing docks in Vale are little more crowded than usual since a lotta people are flying in for the upcoming tournament. Trip will take the two fifteen to twenty minutes but might have to tack on another five or ten depending on if we gotta wait for a landing spot to open up."

Having said his piece, the vehicle shuddered before lifting from the ground and taking flight. In the seating area, Jaune and Cardin had yet to speak up at all and continued to stare at each other from where they sat.

About ten minutes passed before Jaune let out a large sigh and bit the bullet.

"So, what is the rest of your team up to today?" Jaune asked, at least trying to make an attempt at conversation.

Cardin blinked, not having expected the question but rubbed his neck as he forced a reply. "Uh, Russel bombed a test earlier this week so I think he's studying in the library. Dove went to his cooking club today-"

"Y'know, I always forget that Beacon has clubs." Jaune commented. No one on his team was in a club, nor was anyone on Team RWBY, so it wasn't something he thought about.

"Right. And I'm pretty sure Sky is just going to be playing video games all day." Cardin finished. A minute passed before he returned the question. "What about your team?"

"Nora's probably still sleeping. She's a heavy sleeper and uses weekend days to sleep in and doesn't wake up until it's past noon. I think Ren was gonna do some shopping in Vale and Pyrrha… she'll probably be in the training hall all day destroying training bots. If Lycan is overseeing the training hall today she'll probably challenge him too."

"Hm." Cardin grunted. "Must be something, having a celebrity on your team."

"None of us really care about that. And Pyrrha doesn't really care about it much herself."

Cardin sneered a little at that. "What, being rich and famous is too much trouble?"

Jaune frowned. "Lay off, Cardin. Wealthy people have their own problems. And can't you relate to that given the rumors about your family?"

"Those aren't…!" Cardin started hotly before forcing himself to swallow his words and cool his nerves. "Whatever. She's your teammate and I only know her based on her reputation, so it's not like I can comment."

"That's right." Jaune nodded before giving the other boy a sheepish look. "Sorry about the dig against your family."

"I was being snide about your partner first. It's fine." Cardin scoffed. "Just be careful if you're gonna try to imply anything about my family again, Arc."

"Sure, sure. And same to you."

"Whatever."

Once again, the duo lapsed into silence.

"Well, this is going swimmingly so far." Jaune thought tiredly.

"We only talked for a little bit and I already want to punch him in the face." Cardin lamented in his head.

"…You're welcome, by the way." Jaune muttered.

"Huh?" Cardin glared at Jaune for a moment before he realized what he was driving at. The Winchester heir let out a sigh. "Yeah, thanks for agreeing to go along with this and fake a friendship with me for my girlfriend's sake."

"Oh, I didn't mean that, but I guess that plays into it."

"Huh?"

"I mean, would you even have a girlfriend if it wasn't for me?" Jaune asked with a small smirk. "We both know you had very different intentions that day when I pretended to be your romantic wingman. But now look at you! Happily dating a cute bunny girl!"

Cardin just stared at him incredulously while Jaune returned his look with a cheeky expression.

"I never heard a 'thank you' from you for that."

Cardin just continued to stare at Jaune with his mouth slightly agape for several more second before his expression became stormy. Slowly raising his arm, Cardin pointed threateningly at the irritating blonde.

"Strike two, Arc." Cardin growled.

"Sorry, I just felt it had to be said or else I'd never have the chance to bring it up again." Jaune shrugged. "Seriously, even if I was just trying to keep you from bullying her, I'm genuinely glad that things have worked out so well between the two of you. Velvet seems really happy with you, and you seem happy with her. No joke, I wish you two all the best for however long you date each other for."

Once again Cardin was thrown off by Jaune's words, and was both surprised and flattered by the complete lack of sarcasm or mockery in the blonde's words. While deep down it still irked Cardin that Jaune was the one responsible for hooking him up with Velvet, he was right on the money about how well things had worked out.

"Yeah, well, we'll see how things go." Cardin mumbled. "I don't put much stock into the high school or college sweethearts thing. It's extremely rare for someone to actually end up with the first person they date for the rest of their lives so-"

"Wait, Velvet's your first girlfriend?"

"But I'm gonna do my best to do right by her." Cardin declared, purposefully ignoring Jaune's question as he crossed his arms and glared off to the side. "She's… a really great girl. I'm glad to have her as my girlfriend."

Jaune smiled a little at that. Even if Cardin's attitude was still hard to put up with, Jaune could at least respect the man for the genuine effort he seemed to be putting into his relationship with Velvet.

"…Thanks."

"What was that?"

"I didn't say anything, shut up." Cardin growled with red cheeks, clenching his fists when he heard Jaune chuckle. He opened his mouth to tell Arc where he could shove it but was cut off when the bullhead intercom crackled.

"We'll be landing in Vale in a few minutes. Get ready to disembark, but please keep your seatbelts fastened until I open the bullhead doors. Thank you."

Jaune and Cardin glanced at each other as the pilot's voice faded.

…Well, they'd managed to share a flight without trying to kill each other. It was still up in the air whether or not they could tolerate each other for the rest of the day.

"…So what's the plan?" Jaune asked.

"…That's a good question." Cardin sighed.

---

Yang sighed happily, the last traces of the gym shower's heat still lingering on her skin even in her casual clothes. She walked alongside Nora, who was still bouncing up and down happily despite the long workout they did.

"Gotta say Sparky, you're definitely something else!" Yang complimented the shorter orange-haired girl. Nora beamed, practically shining in her joy.

"Thanks! You're pretty good too! Most of my other workout partners kind of... Broke!" She paused and hummed. "Except for Jaune, Pyrrha, and Renny of course! Nice to have someone else along!"

"It is nice, isn't it?" Yang agreed with a grin, as they walked through Beacon's main courtyard. A few other students were milling about, foreign and domestic, out enjoying the warm weather. Yang waved at a few she knew, but her attention was mainly on the glowing Nora.

"Sooo?" Yang prompted. Nora glanced over, and tilted her head like a curious puppy.

"Sooo?" She replied in almost perfect imitation of Yang's tone. The blonde brawler waggled her eyebrows.

"You and Zen Ren? How's it going?"

Nora frowned in thought as they entered the dormitory area. It was deeply uncharacteristic of the spastic girl.

"I mean..." Her face went dreamy, "We kissed. And... And it was everything I'd ever wanted." She grinned at Yang. "Even fireworks went off afterwards! Well, explosions, but still."

"Uh huh," Yang said, grinning back and nodding as they climbed the stairs up to their level. Nora sighed again, a frustrated look appearing on her face.

"But... The whole week of detention, he... He didn't bring it up!" Nora pouted. "Do... Do you think he likes someone else?"

Yang almost laughed at the worried expression on Nora's face. But hey, she was learning to be a little more sensitive.

"Of course not," Yang said, "I'm pretty sure you're his everything, Nora. But... Well..." She shrugged. "I honestly can't say. I mean it's not like Zen and I talk all that much."

She did admire his martial arts form, of course. He was extremely smooth, controlled, and refined in that. He moved like water, smooth and without hesitation. His Semblance probably played a role in that, but...

Nora frowned herself as they walked down the hallway towards their mutual common room.

"I just... He was gonna say he loved me, when he thought we were gonna die," she insisted, "I know it. I also know... I mean, he liked that kiss! I know he did... Right?" She again fretted.

Yang chuckled and patted the smaller girl on the shoulder. In some ways she reminded her of Ruby.

"Look... The life you two have lived? I don't think he wants to change things too much, too fast," she said, "He's... Well... He might be afraid of losing you if you finally took the final step from friends to more."

Nora shook her head.

"He'd never lose me," she stated, with the same certainty she might say the sun would come up in the east or sloths were cute. "Never."

"That's what my dad thought, too."

Yang winced the moment she said it. The frightened look on Nora's face made her regret complete. Yang took a deep breath, and reached out to hug Nora.

"I'm not saying you're-You're nothing like my mom," Yang said firmly. Nora nodded, having heard the story. "That doesn't mean that, well... That you wouldn't break up for some other reason. And... Well... You two are your everything. He's just as scared of losing you as you are of losing him."

Nora was silent, her gaze stony. She slowly nodded.

"I... I don't think I can imagine a world without him," she murmured, "I'd probably kill everyone around and myself if I did."

Yang laughed... Then a bit nervously at the intense look Nora still had in her eyes.

"I-I know... And uh, he probably feels the same way. And look... I mean... I'm not a date expert-"

"You're going out with Jaune-Jaune," Nora insisted, "And you're not weird horny crazy like Pyrrha or a little sister figure like Ruby!"

Yang flushed.

"Yeah, well... It's only been one date. That doesn't mean I know what I'm doing," she mumbled. She looked at Nora. "Still, I mean... He's got his own issues, too. I'm... I'm willing to be patient for him."

She smiled gently.

"I think... I think he's worth waiting for," she said, "And Ren is too. But sometimes, men are stupid and need a nudge in the right direction, you know?"

"They're not stupid... I mean, they are but they're," Nora thought about it for a second, "They're like wolves."

Yang blinked.

"Wolves?"

She grinned and winked.

"Well, I wouldn't mind Jaune gobbling me up-"

"I mean like," Nora frowned, "There was this wolf that hung around our village. It was hurt and snarly. Some of the men wanted to kill it, but Renny's dad just went out to it and gave it some meat. Left it out and then backed away. He did this over and over and overrr, talking soft, staying small... Until the wolf finally trusted him, and let him give the wolf scratchies behind the ears."

Nora beamed.

"Jaune-Jaune and Renny are stupid like that! Cause they got hurt and they don't wanna get hurt and sometimes talking doesn't get through!"

Yang blinked a few times, before she slowly nodded. A small, soft smile came over her face.

"Yeah... Stupid like that," she said. Her smile widened into a grin.

"So, you gonna give Zen Ren some samples of flesh? To bite into?"

Nora hummed.

"You think that could work? Ooh! Maybe I could use the syrup to make myself sweeter!"

Yang blushed, but covered it with a cough.

"Mayyybe that's a little too far," she suggested.

"Don't you wanna do that for Jaune?" Nora asked. Yang coughed and blushed some more.

"I... Well... Yeah," she admitted quietly, "But the wolf thing and... Well..."

She shrugged.

"Ruby and Pyrrha... They deserve their chance, too," Yang said softly.

It was easier in some ways to just let Jaune make the decision. Oh, she was going to fight for him. Hell... Part of her wanted to just go for it.

Like Ren though... There was that fear of losing everything. In the end... She was still Raven Branwen's daughter.

She didn't know if she could escape it... And didn't know if Jaune would keep her from becoming that.

She opened the door to the common room. Blake and Weiss were sitting on the couches around the coffee table, Blake with an ever present smutty book and Weiss with her Scroll. Both looked somewhat bemused at the third person sitting with them.

Velvet Scarlatina looked up with a bright smile.

"Hey Yang! Hey Nora! Nice to see you!"

"Nice to see you too," Yang said, "What's up?"

Velvet beamed and gestured to the homemade pastries and sandwiches now sitting on the table.

"Well, uh, since Cardin and Jaune are friends, I was thinking that maybe we could be friends too?" She suggested. "I-I mean, you are Jaune's girlfriend, right?"

Yang blushed.

"Uh... Well..."

"Yes she is!" Nora said cheerfully. "Though so are Pyrrha and Ruby!"

"Nora!" Yang hissed through bright cheeks.

Velvet gaped and went bright red. Weiss and Blake looked amused and both concealed it.

"O-Oh?" The rabbit Faunus asked.

"I also think Weiss is tsundere over him, but I guess it's just REALLY complicated!" Nora chirped, leaping over the couch and landing next to Velvet with a happy bounce.

"I am NOT tsundere," Weiss grumbled, nibbling on a pastry, "These are very good."

"Thank you, Weiss," Velvet said gratefully.

"She's used to Faunus made treats," Blake snarked. Weiss glared.

"My cake butler is human! And if he was a Faunus, I would pay him fairly!"

Nora beamed as she grabbed a sandwich, bit into it... And moaned.

"Ohhh... Maple syrup bacon?! How did you know?!"

"Um, I-I smell syrup on you every day," Velvet said modestly, "I thought you'd like them!" She smiled at Yang. "Come on!"

"Er, sure," Yang said, closing the door behind her and sitting opposite Velvet and Nora. Velvet smiled warmly at her.

"So um... You are his girlfriend?"

"It's complicated, but we're not a harem or anything," Yang said.

"At least not yet," Blake said dryly.

"BLAKE!"

---

"So…" Cardin began.

"...Here we are." Jaune finished.

Both boys stood at the curbside of the street, staring out into the street as crowds of people went about their day. Any of the four major cities were often crowded and Vale was no exception, but it was especially so with the upcoming holidays. With the Vytal Festival on the horizon the city was bustling even more than usual.

"I don't suppose you thought of something for us to do in the ten minutes it took for us to land and get off the bullhead?" Cardin asked the blonde.

"Hey man, you're the one who invited me out and I'm here as a favor to you. I shouldn't have to be the one to plan our activities." Jaune protested mildly.

"I didn't invite you here. Velvet invited you on my behalf."

"My point stands. I'm making an effort being here. You could make an effort too."

"Fine, fine…" Cardin sighed, crossing his arms as he thought of what he and Jaune could do to kill time in Vale before heading back to Beacon.

How many hours did he have to spend with Jaune before it sufficiently qualified as "hanging out" anyway? It was easier with his team or with his girlfriend. He did have to track the hours spent with them or rack his brain for how they were going to spend the day. It was extremely tempting to just go their separate ways and then meet up later, and it was likely a suggestion that Jaune would agree to given that he looked about as enthusiastic about this outing as Cardin himself felt, but Velvet was definitely going to want to hear about what they did today and the Winchester heir wasn't extremely confident in his ability to string together a fake story that she wouldn't see through.

Eventually, Cardin shook his head and let out a short growl. There was no point in overcomplicating this. He could spend a few hours tolerating a classmate he disliked for his girlfriend. And the best activities would be ones where they wouldn't be required to talk to each other.

So that made for a pretty obvious and easy suggestion.

"The movies." Cardin declared. "That's where we'll go. Unless you have another suggestion?"

"No, I'm fine with that." Jaune said.

Cardin grinned at the reply. A movie would eat up approximately two hours of their time together. "Good. Since I'm the one suggesting it, I'm gonna choose the movie."

"Sure."

Fifteen minutes later, the duo stood in front of the movie theater entrance, staring at the movie poster advertising the flick Cardin had chosen.

"I'd like to raise an objection."

"What?" Cardin huffed, glaring at Jaune.

"You chose the new Grimminator movie. I'm not really enthusiastic about seeing it."

"Why not?"

"Because they've gotten progressively worse after the first two films. This is the sixth one and fan reviews are saying it's the worst one."

Cardin arched an eyebrow at Jaune. "Have you been talking with Sky at all? Last week he said almost the same thing word for word."

"Sounds like he has better taste than you then." Jaune mused as he frowned at the poster. "Were you gonna bring Velvet to watch this?"

"That was the plan before she made you my date for today." Cardin replied with a scoff. "She's actually really, REALLY into sci-fi stuff. Any movie that takes place in space or the future or has robots or all three at once will have her talking about it nonstop for hours afterward."

"Huh. Didn't take her for a sci-fi nut. Maybe she'd get along with Ruby. Is she a Grimminator fan?"

"I don't know if she's a super huge fan of the franchise or anything, but she got really excited when I told her I'd never seen any of them during a home-movie date we had a few weeks back. We watched the first two together. They're super old, but they held up pretty good."

"First two…? So you didn't watch any of the others?"

"No. We watched a movie about aliens afterward."

"And that didn't tip you off at all? Maybe the reason she didn't have you watch them is because she has a low opinion of them?"

"Hey, I chose what we're doing so I'm choosing the movie!"

"You're not open to alternative suggestions?"

"Arc, the movies can't be that bad if they made four more after the first two. Let's just get our tickets and head inside."

"I dunno if I want to pay for the tickets though…"

"Well, I'm sure as hell not paying for you! C'mon, show's starting in ten minutes so get moving!"

Cardin and Jaune entered the theater, the former annoyed and the latter resigned as they sat down for the film. About two hours later, the brunette and blond exited the theater, the former looking tired with the latter looking amused as he chuckled to himself.

"I want two hours of my life back." Cardin said morosely as he massaged his temples.

"Yeah, that was pretty bad."

"If it was so bad, why are you laughing?"

"Eh, movies that indulge wholeheartedly in their terribleness just require a little reframing." Jaune said with a shrug. "Instead of seeing it as a sci-fi action, I see it as a sci-fi comedy. Then at least I can get a few chuckles out of it. Plus no matter how bad the film is, it's not like it ruins the originals for me."

"I… hope Velvet doesn't want to come see this later." Cardin said worriedly.

"Even if she did, you'd probably just spend the whole time focused on each other. A bad movie does make for some good background noise. It's one of their few redeeming qualities." Jaune said with a cheeky smile.

Cardin rolled his eyes and pulled out his scroll, glancing at the time. Barely past noon and there was still so much time left in the day.

"We can probably call it quits right before dinner." Cardin thought to himself. That way they wouldn't have to share dinner and he could eat with his team back at Beacon, or ideally Velvet if she wasn't busy with her own team.

It was just finding a way to kill the next five or so hours until that time that would be the real challenge.

"So, what now?" Cardin asked, turning toward Jaune, who blinked in response.

"You're asking me?"

"Yeah. I suggested something first, so now it's your turn."

"Is that how this works? Because I feel like I should be allowed to skip my turn seeing as how that movie was-"

"Just pick something, Arc! To paraphrase your words from earlier, make an effort! I did my part! Now it's your turn!"

"Alright, alright, geez…" Jaune sighed, rubbing the back of his neck as he thought about what they could do together. After a few moments, Jaune remembered reading up online about a place he'd been meaning to check out. "So, I don't want to hear any objections to my choice after you refused my objections."

"...Fair enough." Cardin allowed grudgingly. "Though you saying that has me worried about what it is you're gonna suggest we do now."

"Hey, we're supposed to be having fun together like the good not-friends we are." Jaune smiled, his cheery expression not doing anything to curb Cardin's sudden trepidation. "Who knows, you might even enjoy yourself!"

Cardin only let out an irritated sigh as Jaune started heading down the street.

"Just a few more hours, Cardin." The CRDL leader grumbled quietly to himself as he followed after the blonde. "Just gotta last a few more hours…"

He just hoped whatever activity Jaune had in mind wouldn't wind up being an excuse to mess with him.

---

Pyrrha smashed Akouo into a training bots face, following through and pushing into its face until its head tore clean off. Rolling with her forward momentum, the redhead spun and hurled her shield at another training bot, using her semblance to give Akouo more spin as it flew. At the same time her right leg struck out and kicked the head of the robot she'd just decapitated into the chest of another approaching training bot. The bot she'd thrown her shield at shared the same fate as the one she just dispatched as Akouo sliced through its neck, while the other bot trying to rush her staggered and stuttered in its tracks when the metal head struck its torso. The pause gave Pyrrha the opportunity to dash forward and slice through it with Milo.

Raising her hand, Pyrrha recalled her shield with her semblance, affixing it to her arm and ducking down just in time to catch a training bot's stun mace with the edge of her weapon. After taking the attack on her shield, Pyrrha diverted the blow and lanced through the drone's chest and kicked its sparking husk to the floor.

Panting heavily as she stood back to her feet, Pyrrha wiped the sweat from her brow before glancing around the training arena and admiring her handiwork. Broken, dented, and sparking drones and training bots were scattered around the arena, and looking at the digital display at the edge of the platform, Pyrrha pumped her fist in success when she saw that her aura was still solidly in the yellow, only an inch away from the percentage that would've kept her in the green.

A slow clap sounded in her ears, and she turned towards the one who'd also been admiring her work.

"Well damn, twenty level ten training bots all taken out fighting solo and you're only just barely in the yellow for aura." Lycan Arcadia grinned fiercely at the redhead as he stepped up and shut down the arena's computer. "Not even full teams of four in some years above you can pull off what you just did.

"You've never made the attempt?" Pyrrha asked curiously. She'd seen the leaderboards for the upper years and Lycan was consistently in the top five of the fourth years alongside the rest of his team.

Plus the young man wouldn't be running the combat class if he wasn't anything less than an excellent fighter.

"Collectively my team made the accomplishment at the beginning of our second year. Did it solo myself at the end of the same year, while my teammates did the same at different points during our third year. So you've got us all beat there as a standalone fighter." Lycan informed her, tapping the meter displaying her aura with a smirk. "Though I guess the moniker of 'Invincible Girl' was a little exaggerated."

While Pyrrha normally didn't appreciate others bringing up her career as a tournament fighter, the older student's words and tone were humorous so that curbed any irritation she might've felt about the reference. Plus it was hard to feel annoyed after such a wonderful workout. Her limbs were sore and without opponents to focus on she only just started to notice how much sweat was running down her skin, but it was a good feeling nonetheless.

Plus her success in beating the challenge had earned her a promised prize, which was something she was really excited for and couldn't help the eager smile that bloomed on her face.

"You remember our agreement then?" Pyrrha asked, wanting verbal confirmation from the assistant professor.

"Don't you worry, I'll hold up my end of the deal." Lycan grinned, and Pyrrha bounced a little on the heels of her feet when she saw the competitive spark in the faunus's eyes. "Since you've managed to beat the highest setting that the Beacon's automated training simulations have to offer completely by yourself… you'll get your opportunity to try and go one-on-one with a member of SLVR."

"Yes!" Pyrrha cheered, pumping her fists in victory at Lycan's declaration. "Give me an hour or two to rest then we can-"

"Whoa now! Love the enthusiasm, but you're not gonna be throwing down with any of us today. Give it time and we'll arrange a proper sparring session soon enough."

Pyrrha blushed a little at being called out for her overeagerness, but she couldn't help herself. Though she'd seen plenty of Lycan's battle prowess in some of the close combat classes that he'd hosted, no one he had ever faced had made him go all out. Even Yang, the strongest close quarters combatant of their year, hadn't inspired Lycan to show off what he could really do. Given her experiences in the tournament arena prior to distancing herself from that lifestyle, Pyrrha had pretty good intuition when it came to sussing out good fighters, and every single member of Team SLVR whetted her warrior's appetite.

As she could already solo entire teams of first years by herself, the only battle challenges Pyrrha had faced since attending Beacon were those within her own team, RWBY, and CFVY. Everyone else in their year didn't even make her break a sweat. Even a handful of second years Glynda had pitted her against fared worse than the top first year teams. The higher level training bots in Beacon's simulator did offer an excellent challenge, but only third and fourth year students had unrestricted access to it. The only time first and second years could fight robots and drones in the simulator was during combat class with Professor Goodwitch or if they were directly supervised by a fourth year. And even if they had a fourth year to watch over them, a permission slip from their crop wielding combat instructor was also required.

Luckily Pyrrha had acquired the permission slip at the beginning of the term, and after showing that she could handle the simulator bots, Lycan had been assigning her challenges within the simulator with the end goal of sidestepping the need to use the simulator entirely. After all, an experienced fourth year student was a much better opponent than training bots, no matter how hardy or advanced they were. Pyrrha had proven now that even though she was a first year she potentially had what it took to get scrappy with the upper years.

And she was itching to see where she stood with the top students in Beacon.

"How close is the gap between us? Or how far?" Pyrrha thought excitedly. She'd been without a genuine challenge for so long, it was hard to measure her own successes.

Getting to fight Lycan, or any other member of Team SLVR, would be an enlightening experience to see how much she still had to grow or if her experiences as an athlete really had put her that much further ahead of everyone else.

"Though I will say you didn't beat the original record holder for this challenge."

"Huh?"

Lycan grinned and gestured Pyrrha over, and the redhead quickly jogged over to where the blonde was standing in front of the terminal outside the arena borders.

"When you've got admin access you can look up the simulator logs. They have the difficulty, scores, times, and everything for those using the simulator." Lycan explained as he pulled open folders and files on the computer screen. "You can even access records and scores from people who've already graduated. Though the catch to that is that the names of graduated students are purged out of the terminal system and any scores from those no longer attending the school just lists their team name."

Lycan hit a key and the list he'd pulled up sorted itself into a simplistic scoreboard. Tapping the team name on the top of the list, STRQ, Lycan pointed to the highlighted "S" letter on the team name.

"The highlighted letters show how many members of the team participated in the challenge. Whoever that 'S' stood for did what you just did in her first week at Beacon." Lycan said. "You can see the other spots in the top ten of this list have the rest of the team. Probably the best team Beacon's ever produced based on numbers alone."

Pyrrha pursed her lips a little at that, mulling over the information for a bit before she gave her response.

"Well, numbers aren't everything. Just because they scored well in the simulator doesn't necessarily mean they're better or worse than those who came before and after them."

Lycan barked a laugh at that. "You're not wrong! Simulators give an idea of what others can do but who's to say how much the scores reflect how competent these people actually were. You can see by the date that this score was logged that this team attended Beacon a little over two decades ago. The school's changed a lot since then. The robots have had their programs updated dozens of times over the years, not to mention all the new hardware packed into them. It's fun to look back on things to see how our seniors did back in their day, but I'm glad you're not the sort to get hung up on that."

"Trainers I've had in the past advised me not to focus too heavily on comparing myself to others." Pyrrha shrugged.

Different divisions, different age brackets, there were a lot of factors when tracking one's personal growth. It wouldn't do to compare her merits and skills to an adult, or conversely to someone half her age. Pyrrha focused on herself and her own pace of growth, letting her skills speak for themselves whenever she got into a fight.

"By the by, don't tell Ms. Goodwitch I showed you this function." Lycan requested. "The leaderboards for each year we got posted outside of the combat classroom is one thing, but she doesn't like students attending Beacon now comparing themselves to those who were here over a decade ago. She worries that some people might get discouraged about their own progress."

"My lips are sealed."

"I appreciate that." Lycan smiled, letting out a chuckle when he glanced at the arena. "And I'm sure the mechanics and maintenance staff appreciate the job security you're providing them."

As if to punctuate his statement, a loud blast of static came from one of the downed robots before sparks flew from its chest, followed by a small detonation that had trails of smoke rising from its gouged out torso.

"They served their purpose well." Pyrrha announced, not at all guilty or embarrassed about the mechanical carnage. After all, broken and sliced up combat robots were just the end result of a successful training session in the simulator.

"And speaking of servicing, when was the last time you gave your weapons some good service?" Lycan asked, gesturing down to Pyrrha's weapon.

Looking at her weapons, Pyrrha didn't see any immediate problems… but upon closer inspection, she could see small chips in Milo's edge, plus Akuou was looking a lot more scratched and scuffed up than she last remembered. There was even a pretty solid dent near the shield's right edge.

Pyrrha bit her lip at the state of her weapons. Unlike with the robots she'd brutalized, she did feel bad about the poor state of her javelin/sword and shield.

She was lucky that admission to Beacon also covered any maintenance and upkeep costs for the weapons of attending students.

"The other reason that you're not fighting me or anyone else on my team is I want to make sure both you and your weapons are at one hundred percent before the bout." Lycan told her. "Hit the showers and wash off that grime and sweat, then take your weapons down to the mechanics. I'll recycle the metal corpses."

"Thank you, Professor Arcadia." Pyrrha said, bowing gratefully to the upperclassman.

"Ah, I know that you guys call me that in my classes but I'm still a student here too. You can just call me by my name when we aren't in class."

"If you prefer. I look forward to our fight, Lycan!"

Lycan grinned challengingly at her. "Same here. Heh, never thought I'd say that to a first year. Wish you new standouts had gotten here earlier. Graduating this year leaves us with a lot less time to play around with you all."

Chuckling a little at the blonde's comment, Pyrrha headed to the locker rooms to wash off and change back into her school uniform. By the time she'd gotten out, Lycan had cleaned up the arena and stored the robots away for either maintenance or disposal. The decision on that would be up to the academy's engineering team.

A while later, the duo were heading down the corridor towards where Beacon's forge and engineering department was kept. Pyrrha had told the upperclassman that she didn't need an escort as she knew where to go, but Lycan had said he was only tagging along to pick up his teammate. They'd apparently decided to go out on a date together for the afternoon.

Pyrrha hoped that her envy didn't show on her face. She'd get the opportunity in the coming days though. She'd be the one out on a date with Jaune!

"Soon, it'll be my turn." Pyrrha mumbled under her breath.

"What was that?"

"Ah, nothing!" Pyrrha yelped, waving Lycan off before pushing past the door that led to the forge. "Just talking to myself!"

Immediately upon entering the room Pyrrha was hit with the sounds of working machines that were loud enough to make her wince. Though she'd known of its location, she'd never actually been to Beacon's mechanics and engineering department in person before. All the mechanics and engineers that Beacon employed had access codes to the lockers where students kept their weapon. If someone ever had problems with their weapons or needed maintenance on their tools, they sent requests to the department through email and would get sent notices on when their weapons were being worked on and when maintenance was completed.

Beacon didn't just employ the best when it came to the active class instructors, since the mechanics and engineers who handled the weapons were very clearly talented at their craft. Months ago when Pyrrha had emailed a maintenance request to the department they'd fixed up her weapon and had it back in her locker on the same day she sent the email.

"I wonder if I should get a dog whistle."

The comment made Pyrrha blink while behind her Lycan let out an amused snort, and both turned in the direction of the speaker who was lounging behind a desk with her feet kicked up on top of it.

Ragora Cinarum wasn't looking at the two who had entered though. She was fiddling with some metal and wires in her hands, and while Pyrrha couldn't tell what it was she was working on, she could make an assumption based on the metal figurines that were spread across her desk and posed on the shelves behind her. And even though she was focused on her work, the timing of her comment and pointedness in her tone made it clear that she knew who had just entered the workshop.

Spotting the young woman's familiar floating close by and noticing that its eyes were pointed in their direction, Pyrrha wondered if maybe Ragora could see through it and if that was how she knew who it was that had walked in.

"First off, I'm not a dog. Second, I'm not the only canine faunus attending Beacon. Thirdly, I'm here right at the time you said to pick you up so I don't know why you made that comment." Lycan said loudly as he stepped up to his girlfriend's desk.

Ragora still didn't look up from her work-in-progress. "Did you check your scroll?"

Pyrrha saw the blonde's pose stiffen before he slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out his scroll. He let out a weak laugh after a moment.

"Hence the need for a dog whistle, since I think it'd be a more reliable method of communication." Ragora said, finally looking up and giving Lycan a teasing smile. "You are dismal at answering your texts."

"Er, you could've called?"

"Check your missed calls log, puppy."

Flicking over to the relevant screen at her prompting, Lycan let out a low whine and slumped down to plant his forehead atop Ragora's desk. The purple haired huntress reached over and patted her boyfriend's head.

"There, there. Take assurance of the fact I'm more amused than annoyed."

Pyrrha felt very much like a third wheel since she was lacking context to whatever exchange the two upperclassmen were having. Shuffling on her feet with her weapons in her arms, she wondered if there was anyone else she should be talking to since both older students seemed occupied with each other.

"And what can we do for you today?"

Pyrrha jolted when Ragora called over to her, but quickly stepped forward and held up her weapons.

"I-I'm just here to drop off my weapons!" Pyrrha answered.

"Right, guess that should be obvious since I haven't seen you in here before today and you're not dressed to work any of the machines or the forge." Ragora drawled before reaching down and pulling out a clipboard. "Just sign in your name, student ID, and code to your weapon locker. It's the weekend so we're not fully staffed right now, but someone will get around to work on this at some point. Rest assured your weapons will be in your locker before classes start next week."

"Okay." Pyrrha nodded as she took the clipboard in one hand while holding Milo and Akouo against her side with her other. "Er, where should I drop off my-"

A low groan next to her ear had Pyrrha turning to the right and she couldn't help but yelp when she found Ragora's ram skull familiar floating inches away from her. She was so startled that she'd nearly dropped her weapons on the floor. The familiar's maw open up slowly and Pyrrha just stared at it for a moment before glancing over at the familiar's owner with an uncertain expression.

"Just drop them inside." Ragora told her.

Pyrrha hesitantly held out her weapons in front of the familiar at her instructions, flinching when the skull's mouth snapped forward and chomped down on her weapons and made them disappear behind its teeth.

"Um…"

"Don't worry, he didn't eat them. It's just temporary storage until I decide where to store them or find someone to hand the weapons off to."

"...Don't you need the head mechanic or chief engineer to decide that?" Pyrrha asked.

"Normally yes, but he put me in charge of the workshop today since he called out of work." Ragora sighed. "Word of advice, don't ever agree to become someone's apprentice. It's all just grunt work and having a toady to foist work off onto. And I'm only ever paid in 'exposure' and 'experience' and not actual money. The entirety of my Saturday afternoon is now going to be spent here running the shop instead of spending it the way I wanted to."

Pyrrha wasn't sure what to say about that, though the mildly apologetic look Ragora gave Lycan and the morose expression he gave her in return did give her an idea about what their earlier exchange had been about.

A door at the end of the room slammed open with a loud bang and Pyrrha once again found herself jumping in place.

"Why does this department have so many different ways of startling me?" Pyrrha thought as she held a hand over her beating heart.

"Ms. Cinarum, I'm finished!"

Pyrrha was mildly surprised to realize that she recognized the voice she'd heard. Turning around, she paused for a moment upon seeing the person jogging over to where they were. After a few seconds, her eyes widened when the person's identity registered in her mind.

"Ruby?"

"Pyrrha?" Ruby slowed her approach as she squinted at the redhead before beaming a smile. "It is you! What're you doing here?"

"I was dropping off my weapons for maintenance…" Pyrrha replied, trailing off as she stared at Beacon's youngest huntress-in-training. Ruby noticed her stare and tilted her head curiously.

"Something wrong?"

"No, not really." Pyrrha said slowly. "It's just… your outfit…"

"My outfit?" Ruby glanced down at what she was wearing. "What's wrong with it?"

There wasn't anything wrong with it, but it was a new look for her friend in Pyrrha's eyes. Privately the former tournament fighter always admired Ruby's taste in fashion. For all that the smaller girl downplayed her own attractiveness compared to her teammates and made the occasional self-deprecating comment about her inherent nerdiness, Pyrrha though that the girl had better dress sense than most of the students in their year. While she didn't show off as much skin like Yang or Blake, and her outfit wasn't as immaculate or upper class as Weiss, Pyrrha thought Ruby's corsets, tights and fishnets along with her trademark red cloak made her both distinctive and cute. She was actually a little jealous about how well she could make the look work, and thought it was better than her own armor and skirt combo.

But Ruby wasn't dressed in what Pyrrha had long since registered as her "usual" look. Instead, the younger girl wore large navy blue coveralls, though the torso portion of her coveralls were pulled down to her waist, revealing a black, long-sleeved undershirt underneath. The boots she wore were heavy workboots as opposed to her usual heeled combat boots, she wore large leather gloves over her hands, a bandana was wrapped around her head and covered up her hair, and a pair of safety goggles hung loosely around her neck. Even her favorite cloak was nowhere in sight, and Pyrrha couldn't remember a time when she hadn't seen the girl wearing it.

Ruby was dressed like she worked for a construction company that focused primarily on metalworks. Which wasn't exactly out of place given that they were currently stood in the area where the school kept its engineering equipment, forge, and other machinery. It was just odd for Pyrrha to see Ruby in such clothes. Sure, Ruby would gush for hours about weapons and their specs if given the opportunity, and Pyrrha vaguely remembered someone mentioning offhand that Ruby had forged her weapon all by herself, but it was only seeing her like this that trait of hers actualized in her mind.

"...You're not wearing your hood." Pyrrha pointed out finally.

Instead of seeing the girl getting shocked or panicking over her cloak like she did whenever she forgot to put it on in the morning or accidentally left it behind in the cafeteria, all she got from Ruby now was an amused eye roll.

"Well, DUH! I can't wear my cloak near the forge! It'd be burned to scraps if a stray spark popped off onto it." Ruby giggled. "I mean, I'm extremely careful when I'm working but I'm not gonna risk my mom's old cloak like that. Jaune may shrug whenever he has to stitch or patch up that raggedy blanket he calls a cloak, but I've got standards!"

"And speaking of standards, did you meet mine?" Ragora asked as she got up from her seat and stepped around her desk so that she could stand in front of Ruby.

"Of course!" Ruby chirped, presenting Ragora's weapon to her, which Pyrrha had only just realized the reaper had been holding. She'd been so focused on Ruby's appearance that she'd completely missed the fact that she'd been carrying a weapon in her arms.

The witch took her weapon and inspected it from front to back, testing the weight and scrutinizing the drum barrel of her shotgun before hitting a trigger and mechashifting it into its axe form. Spinning the polearm around her body expertly for a few moments, Ragora planted the butt of her weapon on the floor before glancing down at Ruby.

"I know I've said this plenty before, but you are absolutely my favorite first year." Ragora said seriously.

"Aw, thanks Ms. Cinarum!" Ruby smiled bashfully. "You're my favorite fourth year too!"

Sighing to herself, Ragora pulled back and handed her weapon to a slightly perplexed Lycan before she stepped back over to Ruby and pulled the girl into a hug.

"Lycan, how much convincing do you think the Simin would need to take this one with us when we graduate?" Ragora asked, patting Ruby's head while the girl blushed in embarrassment and started to struggle in her senior's arms.

"I don't think the boss is gonna like the idea of us poaching from another team." Lycan chuckled.

"He can be so uptight." Ragora sighed mournfully. "Why oh why couldn't these firsties have been with us since the beginning?"

Ragora pulled back some and brushed her fingers against Ruby's cheek.

"Rather, where have you been all my life, little rose?"

"C-C'mon, Ms. Cinarum! Not this again! And not in front of others!" Ruby stuttered in embarrassment, eyes darting from the purple haired girl to Pyrrha.

"You're adorable." Ragora laughed as she finally let the girl go, who activated her semblance as soon as she was free and darted behind Pyrrha. Ragora grinned lazily and glanced back at Lycan. "You've got competition, puppy."

"Oh?" Lycan grinned as he arched an eyebrow at Ruby. "You trying to cut in on my woman, little girl?"

Ruby's eyes widened as she kept a bewildered Pyrrha between her and their upperclassmen. "N-No! Absolutely not!"

"You must like those older women, huh? Rugged with age and weathered by years of experience." Lycan smirked, his descriptions earning a pout and narrowed eyes from his girlfriend.

"Watch it." Ragora warned.

"With maturity comes a certain allure that you can't ignore." Lycan continued as he stifled his laughter.

"I-I have someone I like already!" Ruby shouted.

"I'm just cuttin' up with ya, kid." Lycan said with a laugh, earning a swat from teammate. "What? You can tease but I can't?"

"I think today's teasing quota's been met." Ragora said, looking over at Ruby with a small smile while the girl pouted. "Oh, don't be like that. You've done such a good job that I'll put that extra effort into your model. I'll be super detailed and even color it."

"Really?!" Ruby cheered, looking positively giddy and she hopped in place.

"It's the least I can do for my favorite first year, especially after the work you put into Hexentanz." Ragora smiled, taking her weapon from Lycan and shifting it back into its shotgun form before placing it on her desk. "These first years really are something else. Guess all the prodigies chose to get into Beacon this year."

"Tell me about it." Lycan chuckled, gesturing toward Pyrrha with his thumb. "That one just beat twenty level ten training bots all by herself."

"Oh?"

"Wow, really Pyrrha?" Ruby gasped, looking at her friend in both shock and admiration. "All on your own?"

"It was tough, but I managed." Pyrrha admitted with a smile.

"Heh, 'managed', see says." Lycan chuckled. "By the end of it her aura barely dipped into the yellow. It was a clean sweep. And with that notch in her belt, she gets the chance to take a real crack at one of us."

"Does she now?" Ragora hummed. "Is Simin aware of this?"

"I cleared it with him when she wrecked the level nine bots a week or two back. He knows and approves of it." Lycan grinned. "Like you said, these first years are something else."

"That they are." Ragora nodded her head towards Ruby. "You should watch this star child at work. Honestly, she should be Professor Mulberry's number two instead of me. She's helped me tons with my workload. My afternoon is occupied, but I MIGHT be able to get my evening back if she stays here to work her magic."

"I'm free all day so I'll be here all day!" Ruby announced, snapping a quick salute. "Just keep me watered and fed and I'll tune and fix up any weapon you give me!"

Ragora grinned proudly and pointed at Ruby with finger guns. "You're pretty good."

Ruby smiled and returned the gesture with her own fingers. "Kept you waiting, huh?"

Both girls started giggling at each other. Pyrrha smiled awkwardly at the scene, assuming that it was some kind of inside joke between the two that she wasn't privy. Lycan, who got the reference, just palmed his face and shook his head at the sheer nerdiness on display by his girlfriend and the young weapons prodigy.

"I also came out here not just to hand off your Hexentanz, but because I also finished the other weapons you gave me. I asked around but none of the others were willing to give me anything they had in their queue."

"Not surprised. Ever since you started coming here you've lit a fire in a lot of those guys." Ragora smirked. "They all don't want the fifteen year old to show them up anymore than she already is."

"...I'll be sixteen really soon." Ruby pouted. "But anyway, I came to ask if there's something for me to work on?"

"Well, we kinda got swept up in our little talk but your friend here has an order for us." Ragora said, nodding to Pyrrha before snapping her fingers. The gesture made her familiar float over to Ruby and the girl held her arm out automatically, and the ghostly skull regurgitated the weapons and dropped them into Ruby's waiting hands.

"Ooooh! Milo and Akouo!" Ruby gave an excited grin before turning to Pyrrha with sparkling eyes. "Can I? Can I please?!

"Um…" Pyrrha waffled a little at the thought of Ruby handling her weapons.

While Yang had attested several times about Ruby's talent for understanding and handling weapons, and Ragora's words gave credence to the fact that Ruby's talents were genuine, she was still sort of hesitant to leave her weapons in the hands of someone as young at the little reaper, no matter how competent she'd proven herself to be as an aspiring huntress.

But Pyrrha was never any good at denying her friends, especially not when Ruby wielded puppy dog eyes more expertly than she did Crescent Rose.

"I-I suppose that's fine."

"Yay!" Ruby cheered, clutching Pyrrha's weapons to her chest happily. "Don't worry, I'll take good care of them! They'll have ALL my attention for the rest of the day! You'll get 'em back clean and pristine and better than ever! That's a Ruby Rose guarantee!"

"I-I'll leave you to it then." Pyrrha nodded, turning and making her way toward the door.

"Why not come watch?" Ruby offered, making Pyrrha pause and turn back around to face her.

"Huh?"

"Yeah! I mean, I know you're a fitness nut who'll train all day and night if you could. You're probably going to go grab some lunch and then work out at the gym or something, right?"

"I mean…" Pyrrha blushed as her plans for the day were immediately called out.

With Jaune on a man-date with Cardin, Ren downtown shopping, and Nora doing… whatever it was she did whenever she didn't have Ren to drag around, Pyrrha had been left on her lonesome. She had entertained the idea of asking someone from Team RWBY if they were free and wanted to hang out, but had prioritized beating Lycan's challenge over spending the day with friends. An odd decision when she thought about it in her head, especially with how excited she was to have actual friends, but she didn't want to rest on her laurels.

Then again, was there really any need to be so stringent with her workout schedule anymore? She'd been keeping to it more out of habit than anything else, but now that she was set up to spar against the assistant professors and she wasn't going to be fighting in any tournaments in the near future… aside from the Vytal Festival tournament that everyone would be competing in… did Pyrrha really need to turn down an invitation to spend time with a friend?

"If it's alright…?" Pyrrha asked, glancing over at Ragora and seeking permission since she wasn't sure if there were any requirements to be let into the workshop floor.

"Go ahead." Ragora waved her off. "Just don't break anything. Consider Ruby your overseer, so listen to everything she says. And if you mess up anything, I'm holding you and her both responsible and will assign detentions, understood?"

"I understand." Pyrrha nodded.

"Gotcha!" Ruby chirped before grabbing Pyrrha's hand and tugging her forward. "This'll actually go a lot quicker with you here! You can actually tell me the ins and outs of Milo and Akouo yourself which will save me the trouble of probing and finding out their specs on my own."

"Have fun." Ragora waved after them as she settled back behind her deck.

"Pyrrha, I'll message you when we've got a date and time for your spar!" Lycan called.

"Thank you!" Pyrrha called back before Ruby pulled her past the door.

Upon entering Pyrrha found herself in a long hallway that had a wall with a long glass window stretching down the walkway, beyond which she could see plenty of machines being worked on by engineering students and mechanics. Her attention was pulled away from the interesting sight when Ruby held out two foam earplugs out to her.

"Put these in before we head onto the main floor." Ruby told her. "Aura doesn't protect against any hearing damage, so we gotta take precautions. Just remember to speak loudly so we can still hear each other. You can take them out and throw them away once you leave."

Pyrrha did as she was told and used the earplugs, showing off her plugged ears to Ruby before the smaller girl nodded and led her into the large room through two big doors. Even through the earplugs, Pyrrha could hear the screeching and grinding of metal against metal and the pounding impact of hammers meeting steel. She let Ruby guide her past people at their workstations, with some pausing their work to stare or point at her as she passed by them. Pyrrha could see the recognition and admiration in their eyes, but also saw more than a few confused and envious looks directed at Ruby's back, likely due to her being in her company. Pyrrha just hoped her visit wouldn't ruffle too many feathers or cause people to ostracize Ruby just because others saw them together.

"And here's my workstation!" Ruby announced, stopping at an area near the backend of the room, spreading her arms out as she presented it to the tournament champion. "This is where all the magic happens! Autowelder is on the left, autoforge is next to it, and at the end is where the actual forge is. So you can just ignore the autoforge since I don't use it. Plus the computer had imaging and modeling programs to test concepts and look up information on specific parts."

"They really gave you your own workstation?" Pyrrha asked as she looked around.

"Well, yeah. Everyone who takes the Weapons and Upkeep elective course gets assigned one."

Pyrrha's cheeked reddened a little in embarrassment at that reply. She'd been under the assumption that Ruby's situation had been like her own and that she had sought permission to use the workshop like she had sought permission to use the battle simulator. This was part of Ruby's classes, not something she'd volunteered for.

Though given that it was a weekend day Ruby was present in the workshop for recreation and not because she had assignments to work on. Ragora's words had implied that too.

"So, let's get started." Ruby said, stepping up to her work desk and setting down Pyrrha's weapons on top of it. Reaching over, she punched in a few commands on a console nearby and Pyrrha could feel the forge a couple meters away start to heat up. "Looks like Milo's just got some chip damage, and that can be smoothed out easily enough. Though I might hammer in a little metal so that it retains proper weight and power. A few bits of metal flaking or chipping away might not seem like it'll make much of a difference, but you'd be surprised."

"O-Oh, is that so?" Pyrrha smiled hesitantly, already feeling a little lost.

"Yeah. So, what type of metal does Milo use? Is Akouo made of the same stuff? And are there any custom parts? I'd assume so since your weapon set is a triple-changer. A sword, a javelin, and a gun all in one. I mean, it's not a scythe which is totally superior, but nobody's perfect." Ruby babbled, Pyrrha smiling in amusement as she listened to the girl rant. "So, gimme the scoop! What are the special deets of your weapons?"

"Well, did you just say it yourself?" Pyrrha pointed out. "You know what it changes into. Just do whatever you can to fix the chip damage and make sure the pieces are in working order."

Ruby's head snapped in her direction and immediately Pyrrha felt like she'd said something wrong. The girl's silvery eyes narrowed and her expression was one part suspicious and one part dawning horror.

"Do you… not know what kind of metal your weapons were forged with?"

"I mean… I assume some kind of iron?" Pyrrha guessed.

"You ASSUME?!" Ruby boomed, both looking and sounding like she'd been personally offended.

"I mean… truth be told… my agents and managers were the ones who provided me with my weapons." Pyrrha admitted with an embarrassed smile. "I didn't have anything to do with their commission or creation. If they were ever banged up or damaged, I'd just hand them off to my agent or my mom and they'd send them to get fixed."

"...Do you even know how to field strip your weapon?"

Pyrrha tilted her head to the side. "What do clothes have to do with my weapons?"

Ruby clutched her chest as Pyrrha's question felt like a physical punch to the very core of her soul.

"...G-Geez, you led us all to believe you were an expert in everything related to fighting, but you're telling me that you don't even know your own weapons?" Ruby said despairingly, holding a hand to her forehead as she tried to compose herself. "The scales have fallen from my eyes. I'm seeing you in a whole new light, Pyrrha. And it burns."

Pyrrha blushed. "W-What's wrong with me not knowing how to perform weapon maintenance? I'm sure there are plenty of students like me. And we have plenty of people who can fix up our weapons better than we could ourselves."

"Excuses. Yang performs maintenance on her weapons. Blake does. Weiss does. Heck, I saw Nora in here once fixing up her hammer. That you apparently don't know the basics is worrying, Pyrrha." Ruby said. "Plus Jaune is in here once a week to fix his weapons."

"But Jaune's weapon isn't mechashift."

"His shield is. And he still has to sharpen his sword once in a while. The blade might be made of special metal that only a laser cutter could cut, but he still needs to put a whetstone to it here and there."

"Jaune comes here?" Pyrrha asked, surprised by that tidbit of information.

"Yeah, he sits right over there and works on his sword." Ruby smiled, pointing to a chair at the other end of her workstation. "It's time just for him and me. It's fun!"

Pyrrha's eyes narrowed. While Ruby's was surprised by her lack of weapon knowledge, the former athlete was surprised by the revelation that Ruby was getting a leg up on her without knowing. Sure, Pyrrha had her one-on-one training sessions with Jaune as his partner, but still…

"Well… maybe you could show me how to perform maintenance on my weapon?" Pyrrha asked.

The girl was surprised when Ruby's expression turned to excitement at her words.

"Really? You want me to teach you about the wonderful world of weapons?!"

"I-I mean, if you have the time." Pyrrha stuttered, backpedalling a little due to accidentally hitting Ruby's weapon mania button. "I-It WOULD be useful to know how to maintain my weapon by myself when I think about it. After all, if we're ever deployed to frontier towns in the future there's no guarantee that there will be readily available mechanics to service my weapons if they break or malfunction."

"I'd be happy to teach you! Professor Ruby is more than willing to enlighten you! Then I'll have someone else besides Jaune to talk about weapons with!"

Ruby scurried over to some racks and bins that were set and against the wall before zipping back to Pyrrha and handed her a piece of metal.

"Here, this was a metal I was testing for a new blade for Crescent Rose. You can work on sharpening it using the autoforge. Watch the process and see how the machine handles the metal and that should start to give you and idea of how to sharpen a blade."

"O-Okay…?"

"Another thing that'll be useful," Ruby continued, stepping over to the computer and grabbing a piece of paper before walking back and presenting it to Pyrrha with a smile. "Here's a cheat sheet you can follow. Put these settings into the autoforge and get started." Ruby smiled. "And just ask me if you have any questions or if you run into an issue you don't know how to deal with!"

"But didn't you say not to use the autoforge?"

"No, I said 'I' don't use the autoforge. Because I'm a professional, and not a hack."

"I don't think someone using an autoforge makes them a hack. Isn't it more efficient and faster to use the machine than the forge?"

"Sure, if you want to do things the easy way instead of the right way. I do what is right, but we gotta start you off on easy before I show you the right way to do it." Ruby declared. "Though if you want to keep using training wheels forever, I won't stop you. Just don't complain when I laugh at you behind your back."

"...You better watch out if we're paired together for a spar in Ms. Goodwitch's class. Don't have your mouth write checks that you can't cash." Pyrrha warned, which only earned an amused snort from Ruby.

"She said to the girl in charge of fixing her weapons."

"Is that a threat?"

"Hey, you know what they say about pissing off a waiter or cook when they're in charge of bringing you food? Same principles apply here. My hand could slip and then, boom! No weapons for you to use come Monday morning."

"Please, did you forget what my semblance was? I'd choose your words more carefully." Pyrrha said haughtily. "You've brought me to a room where I'm surrounded by metal. I'm not trapped in her with you, Ruby Rose. You're trapped in here with ME."

Both girls stood glaring at each other before their expressions broke and they started giggling uncontrollably at each other. Pyrrha was snorting laughter in a completely undignified manner that paparazzi back home would've paid an arm and a leg to get a picture of while Ruby held onto her sides as she let her laughter flow and not caring who heard her. Eventually the girls settled down and Pyrrha beckoned Ruby over.

"Well, as useful as these notes are, could you please walk me through the startup process? I've always been more of a visual learner, so if I could be shown instead of having to read I'd appreciate it."

"Sure, sure." Ruby smiled at the older girl, still giggling as she stepped up to the console. "So, I'm already signed in so you're already at the main screen. What you gotta do is tab over to the assembly screen like this…"

Pyrrha smiled as she followed Ruby's instructions, enjoying the feeling of being a novice and deferring to someone else. It was an experience she hadn't had in a long time. She was learning something new, and was actually hanging out with a friend at the same time. If the rest of her time at Beacon was going to be like this, Pyrrha couldn't feel more vindicated about her choice to leave Mistral and attend school in Vale.

Beyond just Jaune and her other teammates, it was nice having other people she could genuinely connect with. And Ruby Rose, surprisingly, may be unexpected best friend material.

---

"Are you messing with me right now, Arc?"

"Whatever gave you that idea, Cardin?"

"Because you can't honestly tell me that this is fun for you."

"It is, actually."

Cardin had been tense as he'd followed Jaune through the streets of Vale. He'd braced himself for an activity that would be an absolute chore, and while he'd tried prodding Jaune with questions about what he had in mind on the way over, the other team leader had been annoyingly evasive with his replies. Cardin had gone from annoyed to confused when they'd arrived at the docks, then from confused to completely flabbergasted when Jaune had entered a building close to Vale's pier and had rented a fishing pole and bought some bait. Ten minutes later Cardin found himself sitting at the edge of the dock while his not-friend started casting his line out over the water.

"You're free to go get yourself a fishing rod if you're bored. They're actually renting them out for pretty cheap." Jaune said as he gazed out on the open water with a small smile.

Cardin was left a little lost at just how content the blonde looked doing something so inane.

"Have you ever gone fishing before?" Jaune asked.

"Huh?"

"Fishing. Have you tried it?"

"No…" Cardin admitted.

"So then don't knock it until you try it." Jaune retorted. "Besides, is this really any different than sitting down and watching a movie?"

"Yes. A movie is actually entertaining." Cardin snorted.

"You say that, but we-"

"Yeah, it was a bad movie, but there were plenty of others we could have watched. If we were just gonna sit on our asses some more we could've tried picking another film. Wash the bad taste of that horrible movie out of our mouths."

"Our eyes, more like."

"Whatever. And that would make the statement inaccurate since we don't taste things with our damn eyes, Arc." Cardin grunted. "Learn to grammar."

Jaune chuckled. "Touche."

"Point is, I can't believe you'd rather sit out here holding a twig and string over the water instead of-"

"AH-HA!"

Cardin jumped in his seat when Jaune suddenly shouted and pulled back hard on his fish line. Out from the water a thin gray fish was pulled out and hung at the edge of Jaune's fishing line.

"Only a couple minutes and I already caught my first one." Jaune smiled. "Vale might actually have some pretty good fishing spots."

Dropping the fish into the bucket at his side, Jaune proceeded to hook some fresh bait onto his line before casting it out again. Cardin stared for a moment before he leaned over and peered into the bucket. It was filled halfway with water and he could see the fish Jaune had caught swimming around at the bottom.

"...You actually caught one." Cardin muttered.

Jaune arched an eyebrow at the brunette. "You didn't think I could?"

"Part of me still thought this was just some ploy to mess with me, or that you wanted to waste time." Cardin confessed without shame. "Though the latter assumption is still kinda true."

"This isn't a waste of time. Fishing is a relaxing sport that helps relieve stress. Plus it teaches a good lesson about how patience is often rewarded." Jaune said. "My dad took me out to fish a lot growing up. Radian has a few big lakes with lots of fish, and we'd take boats out and spend an afternoon trying to catch fish for dinner."

"That right?" Cardin mumbled, resting his chin on one hand. "You still go fishing with daddy?"

"My dad's dead."

Cardin winced at Jaune's blunt reply. Even given the animosity he felt toward the blonde, disparaging the dead wasn't any way for someone to act.

"Sorry…" Cardin murmured, eyes pointed down at the calm wandering and not looking Jaune's way.

Jaune glanced over at Cardin, nodding mutely when he confirmed that the other boy's apology was genuine and he wasn't going to make a follow up comment. The blonde swordsman took a deep breath and took a moment to cool his nerves before speaking up again.

"It's another reason I like to fish. Reminds me of my time with him." Jaune smiled softly. "None of my sisters are really into it. Except for Aqua, but she cheats with her semblance. Kinda takes the fun out of it."

"...Heard a rumor that you've got a pretty big family. Lots of sisters." Cardin commented.

Jaune nodded. "Eight in total. I'm the youngest."

"Eight older sisters…" Cardin murmured. He thought of what it would be like to have multiple Argentias. He shuddered at the mental picture. "Can't imagine having more than the one."

"Oh? You've got a sister?"

"Older one. She's a Beacon graduate. Has been for a few years and she's fought on the frontier. She even got a few medals and commendations from the Vale Council for her deeds out there."

"Sounds like she's quite the huntress."

Cardin smiled a bit at that. As annoying as he found his sister and even thought they'd drifted apart compared to when he was younger, he was definitely proud of her accomplishments. "She's a good goal for me to work towards."

He had to stand out just as much as she did since he was Rufus Winchester's only son.

It was a shame Beacon hadn't quite worked out like that so far. During her time at Beacon his sister had been at the top of her class leaderboards for all four years she attended. He wasn't close to the top yet, and Cardin's expression twisted slightly when he remembered that the blonde he was sitting next to was ranked in the top five of their year.

"Whatcha thinkin'?" Jaune asked when he noticed Cardin's sour expression.

"Just thinking about how lame it is that I've got to waste most of my Saturday hanging out with you." Cardin scoffed.

Jaune sighed at Cardin's words. "C'mon man. I thought we were connecting for a second there."

"Look Arc, I appreciate you helping me sell the story about you and me being besties to make Velvet think that the thought of bullying her never crossed my mind-"

"Which it did."

"BUT that doesn't mean we actually need to become besties." Cardin frowned. "Let's just get through the afternoon so we can go our separate ways and maintain our mutual state of dislike toward one another."

"Yeah, how about no?"

Cardin blinked in surprise at Jaune's straightforward refusal.

"Cardin, I wasn't super enthusiastic about spending today with you either, but if we're gonna be in each other's company I'd like to at least try and squash whatever beef is between us. And I don't even know how it started!"

"Psh, like you don't know." Cardin grumbled.

"No, seriously, I don't." Jaune said irritably, finally turning away from the water to face the other boy directly. "You were the one who swung on me first for no reason at all. Remember back in the cafeteria when you deliberately tripped me up and made me drop my food? Dropping a line about some nonexistent pecking order I needed to follow?"

"...Yeah, I remember." Cardin replied with a frown.

He also remembered what had happened afterward.

"You laughed in my face."

"Because it was dumb schoolyard bullying in a place of higher education that teaches us to defend innocent lives against literal monsters. I thought the wedgie and swirly phase of our lives got left behind in middle school. Plus after all the bullshit I went through months prior trying to get into Beacon, your attempt to push me around came off as being pretty comical to me."

Cardin's frown became deeper and he crossed her arms as Jaune tore into him.

"But hey, I was willing to let it go as a one off, until you DELIBERATELY decided to swing on me. That was legit self-defense on my part. Would you have taken the hit if some other guy had tried the same on you?"

Cardin just grumbled.

"And then you go and challenge me directly in combat class." Jaune continued, heaving his shoulders as a substitute for throwing up his hands incredulously since they were occupied gripping onto his fishing pole. "Again, you made the first move, not me."

"...I get it."

"And because I wasn't the doormat you were hoping I'd be, you changed targets to the hot bunny girl who I hooked you up with because I spun it around as you being too shy and the racist attack you made on her was actually a botched attempt to try and convey your feelings to her." Jaune huffed. "I'm honestly kinda shocked she bought that, and I'm even surprised, but not at all unhappy, that you developed genuine feelings for Velvet and you're both in a very happy relationship. Seriously, kudos to you for being a giant middle finger to the White Fang's propaganda by being a wonderful example of a happy human-faunus couple. Which, again, YOUR WELCOME for hooking you up with a literal bunny girl. Look online at all the fetish porn about bunny girls, and you'd know how envious about ninety percent of guys in the world would be of you and would kill to be in your situation."

Cardin was blushing now. He tried his darnest to be respectful to his girlfriend and not directly acknowledge the walking fetish she represented… but Jaune deliberately calling it out was just forcing him to acknowledge what he knew was fact. He really had won the girlfriend lottery.

"So with all that being said, that brings me back to my original question." Jaune said, giving Cardin a hard look. "What is your beef with me? Spell it out for me, because honestly for the life of me I can't think of anything I did to make you declare me your enemy."

"I… you…" Cardin sputtered, trying to come up with a way to explain why he disliked Jaune so much. The blonde just waited, his expression becoming more and more unamused as the other team leader continued to flounder.

"...Seriously man? You can't even give a reason?" Jaune asked, his tone conveying his heavy disappointment. "Then what's with the grudge?"

Cardin clenched his fists and bit his lip. He DID have his reasons for disliking Jaune, but the other boy bringing up their first encounters and Cardin's earlier aggression, plus with another reminder that he was only in his happy relationship thanks to the guy he had committed himself to antagonizing…

…The "why" regarding his dislike of Jaune was extremely petty, a fact Cardin acknowledged in his head but didn't want to admit out loud.

After a minute passed without Cardin giving a response, Jaune sighed again and turned away from Cardin, putting his attention back on his bobbing fishing line.

"...I'm not asking for much here, Cardin." Jaune muttered. "Like you said, we don't have to be besties or anything, but at the very least we should be able to establish a tolerance for each other. We're gonna be attending Beacon for three more years, and unless one of us drops out or bites it at some point, that's a lot of time to interact with each other even by accident. Wouldn't it be better to get along? Our only enemies should be the Grimm we're getting taught to fight against."

Cardin really didn't like how many good points Jaune was making, but he couldn't find anything to say or refute him with. Jaune was extending an olive branch to him. Offering a truce. Cardin recognized that. And much as it irked him, it was just was to much effort to try and one-up Jaune. Especially when the leader of Team JNPR could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he could tie him into a knot if he were so inclined.

…He was the one who'd thrown the first punch. Jaune's actions against him were only taken due to that and he'd never picked a fight, unlike Cardin himself.

Cardin turned his head slightly when he noticed Jaune extending one hand toward him.

"Acquaintances at least?" Jaune offered.

Cardin stared at the hand with a blank expression. A minute or two passed before he slowly raised his hand.

Though just as Cardin motioned to shake Jaune's hand, the blonde abruptly pulled his hand back. Cardin expression became incredulous, then indignant, and he took a deep breath in preparation to shout at the guy who tricked him after spouting all that stuff-

"Oh, this is a big one!" Jaune cheered brightly as he held up the fish he'd pulled out of the water, dangling in front of Cardin's face. "Look at this! Vale's got some pretty big specimens, huh?"

Cardin's eyes were as dead as the fishes as he stared at Jaune.

"...Are you for real, man?"

Jaune's expression was puzzled. "What do you mean?"

Cardin let out all the air in his lungs in a big puff, shaking his head with a dry chuckle.

"Forget it. You ruined the moment this time."

"What are you… oh." Jaune flushed when he realized what he'd did. "S-Sorry, I felt the line getting pulled and instincts kicked in."

Jaune extended his hand again.

"So you wanna…?"

Cardin chuckled and flipped him the bird.

"Moment's gone, man. Ain't no way we're getting it back now." Cardin smirked.

"Alright, alright. That was my B, I admit it." Jaune said, quirking his lips up in a self-deprecating smile as he dropped his hand. "But I think we're getting there, and I'll take that as a win."

"Whatever floats your boat, man."

The duo lapsed into silence, but it was a silence that was far less tense than it was when they'd started in the morning. It was almost companionable, with neither Jaune or Cardin feeling particularly annoyed at one another. Jaune contented himself with catching fish, and Cardin lazily watched him as he counted the minutes it took between each of Jaune's catches.

Eventually, Cardin broke the silence.

"Sorry I was a dick to you after initiation." Cardin said bluntly.

"Apology accepted. Sorry I busted your face so badly after you tried punching me."

Cardin snorted. "You didn't get me that badly."

"I carried you to the nurse's office."

"Next time I'll be the one carrying you to the nurse."

Jaune chuckled. "Promises, promises."

Cardin snorted, but mulling over Jaune's words, something about the boy did make him a little curious. He opened his mouth to voice a question, but instead his stomach spoke up first, growling loudly enough for the two of them to hear.

"...If I were with Velvet right now she'd be cooking me one of her lunches." Cardin whined.

"Well, I don't think I can measure up to that-"

"Definitely not."

"But thinking about it, we never had lunch. We should get some grub." Jaune suggested.

"You're not gonna eat the fish you caught?" Cardin asked, pointing down at the fish swimming around in the bucket next to his feet.

"Nah, they're going back in the water. I didn't bring anything with me to preserve them and I don't feel much like going back to Beacon and storing them in the fridge. This was more of a spur of the moment thing, so if I come back here I'll bring something to store them in. This was just a recreational fishing session."

Cardin stared at him for a few moments before shaking his head with a sigh. "I still don't get how you can actually have fun with this."

"Hey, to each their own. And it gave us a good opportunity to chat, didn't it?"

Cardin scratched his cheek. "I guess…"

"Tell you what though, if you let me pick the place we eat at I'll pay for your meal."

"I mean…" Cardin started, but trailed off as he thought about that. The compromise was probably better than arguing over a place they both agreed on, plus it let him get out of paying for his food. "...I guess that's fine. What place did you have in mind?"

"It's a place me and my friends found a little after we got accepted into Beacon," Jaune smiled. "A little hole-in-the-wall diner with excellent service, good atmosphere, and stellar eats. I think it'd actually make for a pretty good date spot for you to take Velvet to one day."

"Is that right?" Cardin hummed, getting a little curious about the place Jaune was describing.

"Yeah, I haven't had a chance to eat there recently so this is a good opportunity." Jaune grinned. "Just let me catch one more and then we'll head out."

Cardin frowned when he felt a rumbling in his gut after Jaune finished his sentence. "You'd better not keep us here waiting for that one more bite for too long after the way you just talked about this place."

Jaune grinned when he felt a tug on his line.

"Don't worry. You won't have to wait very long." Jaune declared as he pulled his line.

Cardin's eyebrows rose at the sizeable fish that jumped from the water. Seeing Jaune's proud expression as he beheld his catch, Cardin actually found himself a little tempted to come back.

Maybe fishing could actually be fun?

---

OMAKE: The Call from Home

---

At breakfast, Jaune's Scroll went off. He opened it up, checked the caller ID... And groaned.

"Trouble, Jaune?" Pyrrha asked in concern.

"Yes," Jaune sighed.

"What kind of trouble?" Blake asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Just my family and-"

The Scroll screen changed, and a window opened. A doll-like blonde woman with very intense blue eyes glared out at Jaune. Jaune yelped.

"What the-?!"

"You were taking too long to answer, little brother," the young woman spoke coldly. Jaune winced.

"Um... I was just thinking about how to greet my wonderful sister after not seeing her for so long?" He said with a smile.

The woman's eyes narrowed to slits.

"You're an absolutely terrible liar."

"Well you didn't teach me anything now did you?!" Jaune demanded. The woman huffed.

"I did. You just didn't pay attention."

Jaune sighed heavily.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I should have called sooner."

"You should have," the girl stated.

"Who is that?" Ruby asked.

"My sister Tangerine," Jaune sighed.

"Tanya!" Tanya growled.

"It's what Mom and Dad named you!"

By this point, everyone had stopped pretending not to watch and had crowded around behind Jaune.

"And they named me wrong, so there," Tanya huffed, "Anyway, given that I ran off into the world to do my own thing, I can hardly fault you for doing the same. I'm glad you did."

"Oh... That's good," Jaune said with a nod.

"But I'm still annoyed it took you this long to pick up a Scroll," Tanya growled.

"I-I had to get a new one!" Jaune protested.

"Sorry, not good enough," Tanya stated, "Now you get your REAL punishment."

Jaune blinked, and paled.

"You didn't tell Mom. Please, tell me you didn't-!"

"Of course I didn't!" Tanya scoffed. "I'm not that sadistic! You'll have to work your shit out with her yourself!"

Jaune sighed in relief.

"Thanks sis."

"Don't thank me," Tanya coldly hissed, "I have a far worse punishment for you in mind."

"What kind of-?"

The image shifted to one of a very beautiful, matronly looking young woman with her blonde hair in a high ponytail. She was sitting in a comfortable looking living room, the walls covered in photos of the Arc family. She wore a blue and white farm dress, simple but elegant. She had the same features as Jaune and Tanya-The chin, cheeks, and eyes were nearly exact. But this woman looked so sorrowful it made Jaune feel like someone had reached into his chest and squeezed his heart.

"L-Lilac...?" Jaune whispered.

"Jaune... I missed you... S-So much...!" Lilac sniffled and sobbed. "I-I thought you were dead! I was so worried! We all worried for so long and looked for you-Ohhh Jaune...! How could you...?"

She sobbed so painfully that Jaune clutched at his chest. He bowed his head as shame filled every part of him.

"I... I'm so sorry Lilac! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to... I just... I got so wrapped up...!"

"You brute!" Weiss sniffled. "She's devastated! How could you do that?!"

"Not cool, Jaune," Nora nodded.

Jaune sighed. Even Pyrrha was looking hurt. He turned back to Lilac.

"I am so, so sorry Lilac. I did you so much wrong... Please, forgive me, and I will do better. I promise."

Lilac ceased crying, as though someone had flipped a switch. She was all smiles.

"Oh, I can't stay mad at you, my snookie wookie pumpkin little brother~!"

Tanya stomped back on camera and glared.

"Damnit Lilac! That wasn't nearly long enough!" Tanya complained.

Lilac sighed.

"But he looked so sad, Tangy! I can't bare to see my pookie wookie baby brother so sad!"

"UGH! You're impossible!" Tanya groaned. "And it's Tanya!"

Lilac turned back to the camera, all smiles.

"Anyway Jaune, since you're gonna be a big strong Huntsman, I got you a gift!"

She pulled out a large rocket launcher and held it up proudly.

"Is that a Mk. 41 Spelunker Surface to Surface Missile launcher?!" Ruby gasped in ectasy.

"Where did you get that?!" Tanya demanded.

"My boyfriend Primo fixed it up when Mister Lopez wrecked it! He said we could have it! Though unfortunately, I don't think I can mail you the ammo. Apparently that's illegal." Lilac huffed. "Which is just so silly! How are you supposed to work the thing if they don't include the ammo?"

Tanya blinked.

"Wait, your boyfriend fixed it? He works on cars and motorcycles, not military hardware!"

"Oh come on, how much difference does that make?" Lilac laughed. She held up the rocket launcher scope to her eye. "Hm, I think this is the night vision button."

The launcher ignited, and a Dust powered rocket flew out the back of the launcher through the window. There was the sound of a distant explosion and a car alarm going off. Lilac blinked as Tanya and Jaune both gaped in disbelief.

"Well, that wasn't the night vision. I still can't see anything!"

Tanya scowled at Jaune.

"I'm going to fix this, but you're gonna get it even worse, you brat."

"Bye Jaune! Love you!" Lilac waved cheerfully.

The call ended. Jaune winced, and slowly turned to face his staring friends.

"... What?" Weiss managed.

"Is... That normal for your family?" Yang asked.

Jaune sighed, leaned back against the table, and shrugged.

"Prrretty much."

"And so much is explained," Weiss muttered.

Ruby grinned.

"I don't see anything wrong with this!"

"Me neither!" Nora cheered. "Can you adopt me, Jaune? Can you? Can you?!"

"We'll see," Jaune deadpanned.

---

Next update will be on August 30th, so stay tuned.